More and more of our customers are becoming interested in native plants, which we have been promoting since we opened our nursery in 1992. If you would like to know more about why growing native plants is important to our survival, click here. Every plant in this post is native to Southeastern Pennsylvania unless noted.

Our woodland garden, which is filled predominantly with native plants, is in full bloom right now. If you would like to see a video of our woodland in bloom, there is one on our Facebook page here, just scroll down past upcoming events to videos. Meanwhile, I am going to highlight some of the natives in our woodland in this post.

I am dedicating this post to the volunteers and career emergency personnel at Narberth Ambulance and all the ambulance workers all over the country who are risking their lives daily to help people with COVID-19. In the face of their dedication, any sacrifice that we are asked to make seems minor. Please stay home to save lives. For an inside look at what ambulance workers face right now, please read this excellent article from the Philadelphia Inquirer by clicking here.

Nursery News: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is closed as a non-essential business until further notice. Our 2020 Snowdrop Catalogue, which is sold out, is on line here. If you would like to get email notification of the 2021 catalogue, please send your full name, cell number (for back up contact use only), and your address if mail order to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. We do not take advance orders for snowdrops.

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. We sell plants from approximately December 15 to June 15. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops to US customers only. For catalogues and announcements of local events, please send your full name, location, and cell number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

.Celandine poppies, Stylophorum diphyllum, in the front with golden groundsel in the back. Both of these plants should only be grown in a naturalized garden where they can spread. Golden groundsel is a great native substitute for non-native groundcovers like pachysandra, ivy, or vinca. It is evergreen, has beautiful flowers suitable for cutting, grows in even the most difficult site, and covers the ground completely.

.

‘Blue Ridge’ creeping phlox, P. stolonifera, also makes a great evergreen groundcover. ‘Blue Ridge’ is not as vigorous as some of the other creeping phlox cultivars, which can be an advantage if you have a small space.

.

Virginia bluebells, Mertensia virginica, are going by right now, but their true blue flowers have been a highlight for the last two months. They go dormant when it gets hot out.

.

Dwarf Jacob’s ladder, Polemonium reptans, in the front with blue flowers, and wild ginger, Asarum canadense, right center under the native dogwood, have moved around on their own to fill large swaths of our woodland.

.

A close up of dwarf Jacob’s ladder and wild ginger.

.

‘Mocha’ coralbells, Heuchera villosa, on the right, western wild ginger, Asarum caudatum (native to the west coast), on the left, surrounded by creeping phlox, P. stolonifera.

.There are pink-flowered cultivars of creeping phlox called ‘Home Fires’ and ‘Pink Ridge’, but this is the straight species. My customers didn’t buy it last year as it is so vigorous it doesn’t look as appealing in the pots as the other creeping phlox cultivars. I planted 12 leftover, quart-sized pots, and they completely filled in this large area in one year.

.Little sweet Betsy or bloody butcher, Trillium cuneatum, is my favorite of the many trilliums in our woodland.

.Great white trillium, T. grandiflorum, has been seeding through out our patch of white violets, Viola striata. White violets make a great groundcover as they fill in completely and are one of the longest blooming plants in out woodland.

This large “river” of ‘Sherwood Purple’ creeping phlox hosts many of the special snowdrops in my collection in late winter and then produces its lovely purple flowers for a long time in early spring. ‘Sherwood Purple’ is another creeping phlox that makes an excellent groundcover.

Our woodland is almost all native plants with a very narrow path through the center covered in white pine needles.

.

A final view of the woodland.

.

Blogs are a lot more fun for everyone, especially the writer, when readers leave comments. Scroll down to the end of the page to the box where it says “Leave a Reply” and start typing—-it’s easy!

Carolyn

.

Nursery Happenings: You can sign up to receive catalogues and emails about nursery events by sending your full name, location, and cell number (for back up contact use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information. Please indicate if you will be shopping at the nursery or are interested in mail order snowdrops only.

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b/7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and only within the US.

Facebook: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens has a very active Facebook Page where I post single photos, garden tips, and other information that doesn’t fit into a blog post. You can look at my Facebook page here or click the Like button on my right sidebar here.

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information. If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.) or to subscribe to my blog, just click here.

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

This photo is one of my favorite shots of my native woodland which has huge swathes of some of the native plants that are particularly good spreaders, including Virginia bluebells, Mertensia virginica, and Celandine poppy, Stylophorum diphyllum. For more photos of my woods and information on the natives I grow there click here.

.

This weekend Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is holding its second annual Native Wildflower Weekend on Friday from 10 am to 4 pm and Saturday from 10 am to 2 pm. This event is my seventh annual native plant event and is timed to coincide with my native woodland coming into bloom. However, this is the coldest spring that I have experienced since starting Carolyn’s Shade Gardens 21 years ago. The timetable for my events is the same but the plants in the ground and in the pots are on a totally different schedule—they didn’t get the memo, they think it’s early March.

.

Another shot of what my woods should look like with dwarf Jacob’s ladder, Polemonium reptans, in the foreground and native wild-ginger, Asarum canadense, in the background. The Jacob’s ladder is visible right now, but the ginger has not even emerged from the mulch of ground leaves.

Normally I write a blog post around this time featuring native plants. That process usually involves heading out to the garden to take a lot of photos of my native plants to use in the article. However, the only plants blooming right now are hellebores, pulmonarias, and many beautiful non-native bulbs—all my winter-blooming shade plants. So I thought I would use some of my existing photos to show you what spring usually looks like and to highlight some native favorites.

.

The woodland with golden groundsel, Senecio aureus, and Virginia bluebells. Golden grounsel is a wonderful native plant with fragrant yellow flowers and wintergreen leaves. It spreads aggressively to form an impermeable groundcover and should only be planted in places where its habit can be accommodated. It is a wonderful replacement for pachysandra, vinca, or ivy.

.‘Home Fires’ creeping phlox, P. stolonifera, is actually blooming in the pots for sale at my nursery. You have to admire its courage!

.

‘Sherwood Purple’ creeping phlox is the best spreader for use in a shady woodland. Creeping phlox should not be confused with moss phlox, P. subulata, which is also native but prefers part shade.

.

Lemon coral bells, Heuchera villosa ‘Citronelle’, keep their color all winter as do all the coral bells native to our area. They are also tough as nails compared to the coral bells derived from western natives that don’t work here.

If you like the shiny leaf of European ginger, the native long-tailed ginger, Asarum caudatum, from the west coast is a nice alternative. It grows faster and is less picky about siting..

‘Purple Beauty’ moss phlox, P. subulata, is one of seven different colors that I will be selling this season. Moss phlox is often seen in quite a bit of sun but it also thrives in part shade locations. It likes to be well-drained.

.

A treasured native, twin-leaf, Jeffersonia diphylla, has not even started to emerge yet.

.

Another native of western US, ‘Caerulea’ camassia, C. leichtlinii, grows in the full shade of my woodland and in the sunny areas beside my lawn.

.

‘Pagoda’ dogtooth violets, Erythronium ‘Pagoda’, are so happy in my woods that they have self-sowed all over.

.

My favorite time of year for the purple-leafed native geranium ‘Espresso’, G. maculatum, is when it first emerges in the spring.

.

Foamflowers, Tiarella cordifolia, are a wonderful Pennsylvania native. This is the spreading form ‘Brandywine’.

Every photo in this post was taken in my garden. If you live in the area, I hope you can visit when the plants are in bloom. Meanwhile, if you want them in your garden, this weekend is your chance to acquire them.

Carolyn

.

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, US, zone 6b. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

If you are within visiting distance and would like to receive catalogues and information about customer events, please send your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information.

Nursery Happenings:Our Native Wildflower Weekend takes place this Friday, April 5, from 10 am to 4 pm, and Saturday, April 6, from 10 am to 2 pm. If you are a customer, you should have gotten an email with all the details. If you can’t come to an event, just email to schedule an appointment to shop. If you wish to order shrubs, I will be doing a second order within the next week for customers who missed the deadline.

Facebook: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens has a Facebook Page where I post single photos, garden tips, and other information that doesn’t fit into a blog post. You can look at my Facebook page here or click the Like button on my right sidebar here.

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information. If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.) or to subscribe to my blog, just click here.

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

Virginia bluebells and Celandine poppy in my woodland

Well you might have to plant a few first. What am I talking about? How to create your very own woodland filled with native plants. I have written before about how important native plants are to our survival. To read about it, click here. Now I am going to tell you how to create a shade garden in which mid-Atlantic native plants thrive and multiply with abandon.

It is really quite simple. All you do is take one woodland area, mix with generous amounts of compost, add the appropriate native plants, and wait a few years. The key is knowing which plants to use.

I started with the worst possible soil in the worst possible conditions. Not only were the beds composed of the hard baked clay and rocks prevalent in our area, but they were filled with roots from 100-year-old London plane and—hold onto your hats—black walnut trees. Add to that, years of trash, including roofing slate and coal furnace shovelings, dumped in the woods before municipal collection came along and construction debris from the 1960s.

Nature does not dot the landscape with precious collectibles but “designs” with large sweeps of single types of plants, and that is what I have done in my woods To create a woodland like mine, all you do is plant at least five but preferably seven and ideally nine of the plants profiled below in beds amended with generous amounts of compost, mulch heavily with ground leaves, and stand back and wait.Really….that’s what you do….it works.

I wanted to recommend six plants, but when it came down to slimming the competition, I had to go with nine: seven spring-blooming and two fall-blooming. All are native to the mid-Atlantic and Pennsylvania and all seed freely in a woodland setting once they get going. And the winners are:

Virginia bluebells, Mertensia virginica: porcelain blue flowers top blue-green leaves in March and April, goes dormant when hot. All my plants came from one plant given to me by a friend.

Celandine poppy, Stylophorum diphyllum: lovely filigreed leaves are covered with large bright yellow flowers in April and May. Again, all my plants came from one plant given to me by a friend.

Dwarf Jacob’s ladder, Polemonium reptans: wintergreen fern-like leaves are followed in April and May by copious blue bell-shaped flowers replaced by ornamental chartreuse seedpods.

.

White violets, Viola striata: white flowers in April and May. All my plants came from one clump dug from my woods.

Blue creeping phlox, Phlox stolonifera ‘Blue Ridge’: wintergreen mat of foliage is topped with blue flowers in April and May.

Golden groundsel, Senecio aureus: the wintergreen leaves are topped by attractive purple buds in March followed by fragrant yellow flowers in April and May. This vigorous spreader is a great native substitute for vinca, pachysandra, and ivy.

Northern sea oats, Chasmanthium latifolium: pendulous oat-like flowers grace this native shade grass in October and November. The foliage ages to a lovely khaki color that remains ornamental through winter.

The flowers of northern sea oats in the slanted light of fall.

As the spreading, woodland plants profiled above establish themselves, you can add pockets of other special natives like trilliums, jack-in-the-pulpits, mayapples, bloodroot, and ferns. The result is magical.

Carolyn

Facebook: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens now has a Facebook page where I post single photos, garden tips, and other information that doesn’t fit into a blog post. You can look at my Facebook pagehere or click the Like button on my right sidebar here.

Nursery Happenings: My Native Wildflower Weekend will take place Friday, April 6, from 10 am to 4 pm, and Saturday, April 7, from 10 am to 2 pm. Look for an email listing the native plants available if you are on my customer email list.

If you are within visiting distance and would like to receive catalogues and information about customer events, please send your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information.

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information. If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.) or to subscribe to my blog, just click here.

Share this:

Like this:

Welcome

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, PA, U.S., zone 6b/7a. If you are interested in shopping here, send me an email with your full name, location, and cell number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Current catalogues are under Pages below. The only plants we ship are snowdrops to US customers.

Site Stats Since 11/3/10

2,755,721 views

Email Subscription to Blog Posts

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. To join the customer email list, email your full name and telephone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net.